Category Archives: Islam

UK campaign group chief says Poland deported him at France’s request

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Head of Cage says criticism of Emmanuel Macron’s government for Islamophobia is reason for forced return to Britain

The UK director of the campaign group Cage has claimed he has been deported from Poland at the behest of French authorities because he criticised Emmanuel Macron’s government for Islamophobia.

Muhammad Rabbani, who heads a group that campaigns on behalf of those affected by the “war on terror”, was due to give a speech this week at an international security conference in Warsaw that would have been critical of France’s handling of anti-government protests.

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Canadian man accused of killing Muslim family motivated by white nationalism, court hears

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Closely watched trial of Nathaniel Veltman, charged with murder, could reshape how Canada prosecutes far-right extremism

The man accused of murdering four members of a Muslim family was motivated by white nationalist beliefs and was out to commit an act of “terrorism”, prosecutors have argued, during opening statements of a closely watched murder trial that could reshape how Canada prosecutes far-right extremism.

Nathaniel Veltman, 22, is facing four charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder after driving his truck into five members of the Afzaal family while they were out for a walk in London, Ontario, on the evening of 6 June 2021.

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French court upholds ban on girls wearing abayas in schools

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State council rejected complaints that ban was discriminatory and could incite hatred against Muslims

France’s top administrative court has upheld a government ban on girls in state schools wearing abayas, rejecting complaints that it was discriminatory and could incite hatred.

The government announced just before schools reopened this week that the abaya, a long, flowing dress worn by some Muslim women, would no longer be allowed because it violated the French principle of secularism, or laïcité.

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French schools send home dozens of girls wearing Muslim abayas

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Girls who refused to remove banned garment given letter saying ‘secularism is not a constraint, it is a liberty’, says minister

On the first day of the new academic year French schools sent home dozens of girls for refusing to remove their abayas, the education minister said on Tuesday.

Defying a ban on the Muslim garment, nearly 300 girls showed up on Monday morning wearing an abaya, Gabriel Attal told the BFM broadcaster. Most agreed to change, but 67 refused and were sent home, he said.

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Travel firms urged to halt trips to Uyghur region over China rights abuses

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Exclusive: Report says optics of western firms organising Xinjiang tours amid ‘crimes against humanity are disastrous’

Uyghur advocates have called on western tourism companies to stop selling package holidays that take visitors through Xinjiang, where human rights abuses by authorities have been called a genocide by some governments.

The request comes as China reopens to foreign visitors after the pandemic, and as its leader, Xi Jinping, calls for more tourism to the region.

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Sweden raises terrorist threat level after Qur’an burnings

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Threat raised to second-highest level as prime minister says country has thwarted planned attacks

Sweden has raised its terrorist threat level to the second-highest number possible, as the prime minister said the country had thwarted planned attacks.

The move comes amid heightened security fears following a string of Qur’an burnings that have caused outrage around the world.

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Mob attacks churches in eastern Pakistan after blasphemy claim

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Christian family accused of desecrating copy of Qur’an, setting off rampage in Faisalabad

Hundreds of Muslim men have attacked a Christian community in eastern Pakistan, vandalising several churches and a cemetery and setting scores of houses on fire, after accusing its members of desecrating a copy of the Qur’an.

Hundreds of people armed with sticks and rocks stormed a predominantly Christian area in Faisalabad on Wednesday. Images on social media showed smoke rising from church buildings and people setting fire to furniture.

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Russia spreading false claims about Qur’an burnings to harm Nato bid, says Sweden

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Defence agency says Moscow is using the protests in Stockholm to stir tensions between Arab countries and the west

The Swedish authorities have accused Russia of trying to influence how Qur’an burnings are viewed around the world through disinformation campaigns written in Arabic. It is believed to be part of an attempt to disrupt Sweden’s Nato membership process, which is still waiting for approval by Turkey and Hungary.

Sweden’s psychological defence agency, part of the Ministry of Defence, said that the Russian state-controlled media outlets RT and Sputnik had published a series of articles in Arabic, falsely claiming that the Swedish government supported Qur’an burning. Since the end of June, the authorities have logged about a million similar posts in Arabic and other languages. The warning from the agency – a cold war-era body brought back last year to fight foreign disinformation as tensions with Russia escalated – follows another burning in a spate of such desecrations in Sweden.

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‘How will any Muslim feel safe?’ Spate of attacks increases tensions in India

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With elections due next year, there are fears unrest will grow as the ruling BJP faces criticism over its alleged inaction

An imam stabbed and shot to death in a mosque that was then burned to the ground. A young doctor, walking home, set upon by an armed mob who thrashed and molested her. A railway officer, boarding a train, prowled the carriages for his targets and shot dead three men. The incidents, which all took place in India this week, were seemingly unconnected, yet the victims were united by a common factor: they were all Muslim.

Since the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) came to power in 2014, led by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, incidents of sectarian violence targeting the Muslim minority, who make up about 14% of the population, have become increasingly frequent.

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Swedish PM ‘extremely worried’ as more apply to burn Qur’an

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Ulf Kristersson says ‘there is a clear risk of something serious happening’ amid growing Muslim anger at the attacks on Islam’s holy book

The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, has said that he is “extremely worried” about the consequences if more demonstrations go ahead in which the Qur’an is desecrated, amid growing Muslim anger at a series of attacks on Islam’s holy book.

Attacks on the Qur’an in Sweden and Denmark have offended many Muslim countries, including Turkey, whose backing Sweden needs to join Nato – a goal of Stockholm’s after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Russia ‘using disinformation’ to imply Sweden supported Qur’an burnings

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Swedish government says ‘Russia-backed actors’ attempting to damage country’s bid to join Nato

Sweden has been the target of a disinformation campaign by “Russia-backed actors” attempting to damage the image of the Nato candidate country by implying it supported recent burnings of the Qur’an, its government has said.

“Sweden is right now the target of influence campaigns, supported by states and state-like actors, whose purpose is to harm Sweden and Swedish interests,” the prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, wrote on Instagram on Wednesday.

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Iran authorities ban film festival over poster of actor without hijab

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Government blocks event after release of publicity featuring Susan Taslimi in 1982 film The Death of Yazdgerd

Iranian authorities have banned a film festival that issued a publicity poster featuring an actor who was not wearing a hijab, state media has reported.

The move came after the Iranian Short Film Association (ISFA) released a poster for its upcoming short-film festival featuring the Iranian actor Susan Taslimi in the 1982 film The Death of Yazdgerd.

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Protests across Muslim nations after Sweden allows second attack on Qur’an

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Stockholm apologetic amid fears Turkey may delay lifting Nato veto following desecration of holy book

Thousands of people took part in protests across Muslim majority nations on Friday after a second incident in Sweden involving the desecration of the Qur’an.

The episode left the Swedish government apologetic and fearing that the outrage in the Middle East may delay Turkey lifting its veto on Sweden’s membership of Nato.

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Iraq expels Swedish ambassador after desecration of Qur’an in Stockholm

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Baghdad also recalls chargé d’affaires from Sweden as protesters storm Swedish embassy in Iraq

Iraq expelled the Swedish ambassador on Thursday in protest at a planned burning of the Qur’an in Stockholm that had prompted hundreds of protesters to storm and set alight the Swedish embassy in Baghdad.

A government statement said Baghdad had also recalled its chargé d’affaires in Sweden, and Iraq’s state news agency reported that Iraq had suspended working permits for Swedish businesses such as telecom giant Ericsson on Iraqi soil.

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UK must label Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as terror group, says thinktank

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Report from rightwing thinktank calls for tougher sanctions on Iran as October expiry of UN sanctions looms

The October expiry of UN sanctions limiting Iran’s missile programme must become a hard deadline for the UK to adopt a tougher policy that includes proscription of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a rightwing thinktank has warned.

The report from the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) is the second from a right-of-centre thinktank in two days demanding tougher action on Iran, and suggests that the UK ministers’ preferred strategy of introducing an Iran-specific sanctions regime that could lead to sanctions for activities outside Iran has fallen flat with Tory hawks.

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Iran’s ‘morality police’ resume patrols 10 months after nationwide protests

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Authorities announce new campaign to force women to wear the Islamic headscarf, after period of scaled-back policing

Almost 10 months after Mahsa Amini died in police custody, triggering weeks of protest across Iran, police vans are again patrolling the country’s streets looking for women who are not wearing the hijab “correctly”. Now, however, the vans and officers will not bear the name “morality police”, and patrolmen will be wearing body cameras.

The announcement on Sunday followed widespread reports that unmarked vans had been spotted on the streets of cities such as Tehran and Shiraz, stopping people not wearing the hijab. The move has already prompted demonstrations: on Sunday, protesters took to the streets in Rasht after three women were reportedly arrested.

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Thousands suffer heat stress on hajj pilgrimage as temperatures reach 48C

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People struggling in the swelter was a common sight, especially after day-long outdoor prayers at Mount Arafat

More than 2,000 people suffered heat stress during the hajj pilgrimage, Saudi officials said on Thursday, after temperatures soared to 48C (118F).

Over 1.8 million Muslim worshippers performed the days-long hajj, mostly held outdoors at the height of the Saudi desert summer. Many elderly were among the pilgrims after a Covid-era maximum age limit was scrapped.

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Iraq protesters breach Sweden’s embassy over Qur’an burning

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Followers of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr enter mission’s compound to denounce incident outside Stockholm mosque

Iraqi protesters have breached Sweden’s embassy in Baghdad, angered by a Qur’an burning outside a Stockholm mosque that sparked condemnation across the Muslim world.

A crowd of supporters of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr stayed inside the compound for about 15 minutes, then left as security forces deployed, an AFP photographer said.

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Sudan paramilitary group boasts of detaining Islamists

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Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, leader of the Rapid Support Forces, wants to frame Islamist opponents as a threat

Hundreds of Islamist leaders and activists in Sudan have been detained by the Rapid Support Forces in a wave of repression targeting the paramilitary group’s political opponents.

The arrests began before the outbreak of fighting in April between the RSF and forces loyal to Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto military leader, but have intensified since.

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Indian court halts airing of documentary on Muslim minority

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Ruling dismays free speech activists who accuse Modi government of systematically shrinking space for dissent

An Indian court has blocked the screening of an Al Jazeera documentary about the country’s Muslim minority, fuelling fears that the right to criticise the government is being eroded.

The Allahabad high court was acting on a public interest petition filed by Sudhir Kumar, an activist, who said he had learned from media reports that the documentary Who Lit the Fuse? portrayed India’s 172-million Muslims as living in fear of the Narendra Modi government. He also alleged that it showed state agencies acting against the interests of Muslims.

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